Now
by beautifulnightmare05
Summary: One-shot set after the episode 'Exes'.


**Hey everyone! I've been reading fan fiction for years and I've had so many ideas myself, but I've only recently just gotten the confidence to write and upload something. I love New Girl and I love the stories on here, so I thought I'd give it a go. This is a short tag-on for the episode 'Exes'. I hope you like it, and if you have a chance, please let me know what you think!**

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Hours later, they found themselves tangled in his mismatched bedsheets; her fingers absent-mindedly tracing patterns on his bare chest, his hand brushing up the side of her body as she lay curled up into him. Their silence implied everything and nothing – a quiet contemplation simultaneously evoking the giddiness of their first time, and the genuine contentment that came from knowing that it was what they regularly did now. Every relationship they had lived through – Caroline, Spencer, Berkley – had brought them to this moment, had brought them together. The emotional rollercoaster of that day had showed them that, and they lay there, equally caught up in each other and the journeys that had brought them together.

Her giggling cut through the silence, sending vibrations through his body as she tried to muffle the sound in the crook of his arm. He turned his head to face her, in the awe and wonder and somewhat disbelief that always arose around this girl, this wonderful, crazy, beautiful girl, _his _girl. He watched as her eyelashes fluttered against his skin, her bare shoulders shaking with an unspoken happiness. He could honestly lie in bed with her for hours, listening to her talk and laugh about absolutely nothing – God knows he had done so many times already – but this time his curiosity got the better of him.

'What?'

She lifted her head, her piercing blue eyes sparkling in the light that streamed in through the window. Her grin was infectious; he couldn't help but laugh with her.

'No seriously, what? What is so funny?'

She turned onto her stomach and raised herself up onto her elbows, the sheet sliding down to reveal the slender ivory of her back. Her glossy curls were tangled and twisted – for which he took complete credit – and her eye make-up had smudged across her face, but to him she was as beautiful as ever. Lying there with her, grinning at him with a gleam in her eye, he was as happy as he could remember.

'As soon as I walked through the door? Really?'

As she erupted into giggles again he sat up, rolling onto his side and leaning his head on his palm.

'Are we still on that? I thought I just successfully took your mind off it!' He poked her softly in the shoulder as she continued to chuckle. 'And why is it even funny?'

She paused then, catching his eye and considering him.

'It's just, I was just thinking… if that's true, then there must have been so many occasions where you… I mean, we were really good friends, and the whole time you were just…?'

He brushed his thumb against the crease that had developed between her eyebrows. When she rambled, which she often did, she tended to frown, and he disliked the hint of tension on her normally carefree face. Her eyes fluttered close at his gentle gesture, breathing him in as his fingers danced across her skin.

'Well, I'm not sure I was properly aware of it before today, to be honest. But when Caroline demanded answers from me, I knew. Ever since we met, it's been you Jess'.

Her eyes snapped open at his words, the burning azure sending ripples through him as it always did. There was a warmth in her face as she watched him, one that he was sure was reflected in his own.

'But we always used to fight! And you were always such a grumpy old man, and you thought I was weird!'

He tugged gently on a curl that draped over her shoulder; she shifted her body slightly closer to his.

'Hey! I'm still a grump, and you're still a little weirdo – ow! What, I'm only being honest!'

She laughed as she rubbed his shoulder where she had hit him.

'But yeah, I guess deep down under everything…' He shrugged, not knowing how to explain the complexities of the emotions that surrounded this girl, that had surrounded this girl from the minute she'd skipped into his life with her brightly coloured dresses and melodic optimism.

'Wait, hang on a minute… what was so funny then?'

She grinned again, and he watched as she turned, mirroring his pose and shuffling closer still.

'I was just thinking, whether you knew it or not, during every stupid moment and conversation we had, you were in luuurve with me.'

He rolled his eyes at her, only causing her teasing grin to widen.

'And that's funny how…?'

'Well think about it: when I was your date to that wedding you were in love with me. When we had that ass fight you were in love with me. When you tried to save me from my not-so mass-murdering student you were in love with me!'

'Yeah but I didn't know at the time! And I still don't get how that's funny.'

'Because my turtle-faced, flannel-wearing, grump of a roommate Mr Nick Miller has been in love with me this whole time and I didn't even know! It's just…I can't…'

She burst into a fit of laughter again, the sound radiating through his body.

'It's just, looking back, it just changes the way I look at us back then. I don't know, it's strange.'

She reached forward to run her fingers through his hair, and he leaned into her touch, intrigued.

'I know it's silly. It's just surreal. It's not even funny. Just… who'd have thought it hey?'

He captured her wrist in his larger hand, stopping her movements in his hair.

'So you… you don't think you ever felt anything like that for me before? Not until recently? Not until I kissed you?'

He hadn't been meaning to ask, hadn't intended to ask. She sighed, and he immediately regretted it, turning his head to watch his thumb, as it traced the line of her veins on her wrist.

'I…I don't know. Maybe. We always had a different relationship from the start. I know that. But I didn't, I mean I don't…know.'

He was silent, his fingers stroking her wrist and running down her arm, attempting to memorise the feel of her skin. He'd had a feeling that she hadn't been on the same level as him, not from the start anyway. And he realised it was okay, it really was – he told her so by brushing his lips up against the pulse point on the inside of her wrist. She was here now, here with him, in his bed, under his sheets, in his arms, with him.

'But there is one thing I know now, Nick Miller.'

A smile crept up on his face as she gently nudged him onto his back, rolling over so her body lay completely atop of his. His hands naturally dropped to her waist; her legs entwined with his. And when he met her honest and piercing gaze, her palms holding his face to hers, her nose brushing his, he knew what she was going to say before she even said it. And he knew then, that it really didn't matter how long it had taken them to get to that moment.

'I love you.'

All that mattered was now.


End file.
